How to Restart Apps on Android

Written by Travis Boylls

Last Updated: September 15, 2025 Fact Checked

This wikiHow teaches you how to restart apps on Android smartphones and tablets. If an Android app becomes unresponsive, you can force it to quit in the Settings menu and then restart the app.

Steps

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1
Open Settings
. It's the gray app that resembles a gear usually located in your Android phone's app drawer. You can also swipe down from the top of the screen to open the notification drawer, and then tap the gear icon in the top-right corner.^{[1]
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- The icon may look different if you have a different theme installed on your Android device.
It's next to an icon of four circles in the Settings menu. You will see an alphabetical list of all the apps installed on your Android device.^{[2]
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This will display the Application Info screen with additional options.^{[3]
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It's the second option below the app's title. This will prompt a confirmation pop-up window.^{[4]
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It's in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up window. This will stop the app and the "Force Stop" button will now be grayed out because the app is no longer running.^{[5]
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Press the Home button to return to the home screen.
Open the app drawer and select the app you recently closed.

Community Q&A

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Question

How do you restart the app after you force the stop? This only is showing the forced stop (to me at least).

Rudy Toth

Community Answer

You will have to perform a factory reset, which can wipe out all your apps and data. You should never use those buttons. "Force Stop" is mean only for workers at the factory, so they can do bench testing of the device.

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Question

Will I lose my progression in a game?

Freddy Chavez

Community Answer

Most games these days are always connected to the internet. This way they back up all your game data on their servers. If you lost your phone, uninstalled it or did anything to lose the game you would merely need to log back in and the progress will return. Note that some games even have a backup code as a secondary option to restore an account.

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Thank you for your feedback.
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